Tuesday August 6, 2013

I've Been Thinking:

Since the weekend, press coverage of the US embassy closures has been on front pages across America.

Most of the embassies will remain closed until August 10 which is the last day of Eid el Fitr. The Eid is a three day holiday that follows the Muslim month of Ramadan which is a month of fasting.

What is most interesting is that the embassies in Kabul and Baghdad opened on Sunday. And all US diplomatic facilities in Israel - Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, opened on Monday. That is because in all those places the US presence is secure and properly defended.

Vis a vis Israel, there is no al Qaeda threat at all in Israel. Closing US diplomatic representation there would be silly. The other closures are, however, all based on the same al Qaeda threat, a threat that clearly contained a time table and a set of dates.

Defensive thinkers usually have the "where" and the "how" but never the "when". They usually know what targets are sensitive and high profile and they know the methods used by terrorists.

This time all the pieces have been brought together and the State Department took great caution and acted to protect people and facilities. Nobody wants a repeat of Benghazi.

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